OF THE PHONETIC ALPHABET. 75 
Nor is it probable that men whose navigation was confined to con- 
tiguous coasts would be prompted to so philosophic a discovery : 
“ Qui fragilem truci 
Commisit pelago ratem 
Primus.” 
Those who first ploughed the angry deep on the fragile bark 
were moved by no such exalted conceptions. The failure of 
provisions, or the power of a dominant tribe, the desire of 
new possessions or of plunder, the gratification of animal appe- 
tite, the freshness of the rude wave, might indicate emigration, 
gratify cupidity, or feed the adventurous passion of a maritime 
tribe ; and the islands and coasts of the Mexican Gulph have afford- 
ed to the modern philosopher a lively picture of the ancient Cyclades 
and the shores of the Mediterranean. But it cannot be supposed to 
have been in the infancy of navigation that the want occurred, or 
the attempt was made, to invent a telegraphic language between 
nations and ages. The first purposes of navigation discountenance 
the supposition, and the piratical practices of the Zgean Sea are 
commemorated by Thucydides as anterior to the adoption of com- 
mercial enterprize. When men, however, having discouraged 
predatory navigation hitherto pregnant with glory and renown, 
** went down to the deep in great ships” in the pursuit of legitimate 
gain, they would find their councils thwarted, and their efforts de- 
feated, from the want of an art whereby to record the varying tran- 
sactions of commerce. The symbolic or figure writing, which 
amply, perhaps perfectly, supplied the exigencies of the temple, 
would be found inefficient in describing and prizing the multifari- 
ous commodities that passed through the stores of merchants engaged 
in the transport of the produce and manufactures of distant shores ; 
and the pernicious errors arising out of a verbal correspondence 
through the medium of agents unprepared with an efficient instru- 
ment of recording contracts, would stimulate the invention with a 
permanently increasing impetus. 
On these suppositions, those who have engaged in the inquiry 
have generally attributed the invention of signs for the sounds of 
the human voice to a commercial among the maritime people of 
antiquity. 
The sequel of our inquiry will naturally enough divide itself into 
First, the particular commercial people ; and Secondly, the «ra to 
